Grin and win it.

Monthly Archives: October 2014

With my advisor Vladimir and former U.S. Secretary of State/Treasury/everything George Shultz

I gave a talk last week that made me a bit nervous.

The audience? The External Advisory Board of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). The EAB deeply influences MIT’s energy research direction and represents a large fraction of research funding on campus. It also happens to have on it some of the more distinguished people and fancy titles in the world of energy and climate, including former members of Congress, ex-Secretaries of State/Energy/etc., heads of national organizations, VCs, oil and gas executives, and a couple Nobel laureates for good measure.

Yep. I was a bit nervous.

This was an unusual opportunity. I was invited to give a 15-minute talk on solar photovoltaic technology as a member of the MIT Future of Solar Energy Study panel. The Solar Study is the latest of a series of MITEI-sponsored “Future of ____” reports meant to inform the public and guide policymakers in D.C. on the current status and future trajectory of leading energy technologies. The report won’t be ready until the end of the year (fingers crossed), but naturally the EAB wanted to hear all the juicy details firsthand.

Given the audience, I was expecting to be regularly interrupted and thoroughly questioned, especially by our friends from Shell and Saudi Aramco. I was mistaken. My talk went smoothly, no one interrupted, only a couple people fell asleep, and several questions during the panel sparked interesting conversations. No sweat.

That evening, the EAB and all of the speakers ended up at President Reif’s house for dinner. A few highlights: (1) Kerry Emanuel gave a talk about the science of climate change. (2) My advisor Vladimir introduced me to George Shultz, former U.S. Secretary of State (during the Reagan administration) and current Hoover Institution fellow at Stanford—93 years old and still going strong. (3) Dinner was delicious.

What a day.

***After the panel, I was chatting with one of the board members, Frances Beinecke (NRDC president), and found out that she marched in the People’s Climate March! Awesome.